Nick, Rhonda, Reese, Finn, Charlie, Rio and Sally Jenkins

Why I Cannot Stand Adidas Golf Attire

One of the unreported stories of the 2011 Royal Oaks Member-Guest was the shirts. On Saturday, teams were required to wear Oaks-provided Adidas shirts by flight. All the shirts had horizontal stripes, but each shirt was a different color. Our flight had pink shirts with white stripes, another flight had red shirts with black stripes, etc.

From the front, our garb was perfectly fine. (Sharkey did not like them because they were pink, but he is apparently not secure with his sexuality.) The back, however, was another story:

Contrast that with basically the same shirt from Nike:

I used to shun Adidas-wear because of its pros — particularly Sergio Garcia. But I’ve forgiven him for spitting in that cup and blaming the golf gods for Padraig Harrington beating him at Carnoustie.

Now my disdain for all things Adidas is based on those stripes. Oh those stripes.

Memo to the folks at Adidas: those massive vertical stripes that suffice for the Adidas logo are not necessary. I get the value of a logo for branding, and the three stripes is to Adidas what the swoosh is to Nike. But when the logo is so ostentatious that it causes would-be customers to turn the other way, as the three stripes do for me — well, it sort of defeats its purpose.

The folks at Khaki Crusader are reporting that Adidas has a new logo in the works. It’s a smallish, three-striped shield. (Check out the sixth pic on the slideshow in this entry.) Not sure if that’s meant to supplement or replace the oversized three stripes that Adidas currently plasters all over its stuff — most regrettably for me, on my above Royal Oaks shirt.

Here’s hoping its the latter. If it isn’t, I’ll continue my practice of shunning Adidas stuff at any possible turn — unless, of course, it’s given to me.